Dani Ward

Designer | Teacher | Consultant

Dani Ward, Graphic Designer

Logo Design

While a logo isn’t the only (or even most important!) part of branding, it certainly plays a large role in creating that valuable first impression of your company, cause, team, or event. I love working with clients to create a visual that will leave a lasting positive impact.

Logo design for the Coalition for Responsible Home Education. The acronym is set in a modified Montserrat and overlapped in a way that plays with negative space, ultimately being self-contained in dark teal. It almost looks like a book. The full name of the organization set in Bitter beneath.
Icon design for Crochet and Chain, featuring a monogram of 2 letter "c"s nested within one another, crossed through by a crochet hook. The inner "c" is in Blackletter calligraphy, while the outer "c" is drawn bold and ornate, decorated with chainmail, crochet stitches, and jewels. The monogram is surrounded by a circle of crocheted stitches and the full name "Crochet and Chain" is set in an uncial calligraphy font. The color scheme is dark violet, pale lavender, and silver.
2013. A local businessman approached the team at Icon Graphics for help branding his new restaurant. I sketched through several iterations and ended up with this final logo, with the simple chicken head with the "crazy" eye and the "ll" of pollo serving as the wattle.

Advertising

Associations, manufacturers, cable companies, and more all need to advertise their services in various publications.

An ad design created to thank organizers, guests, and attendees from the organization NMAC (formerly the National Minority AIDS Council).
Infographic design for C&A Scientific and My First Lab.
A photo taken from High Rock in Maryland, showing a landscape of lush green hills as far as the eye can see. The outline of a hiker is resting on a rock formation in the foreground of the photo. The image is advertising the five national parks that Washington County, MD contains.

Brochures

Sometimes, an ad simply isn’t enough to get across the information you need your prospects to know. Brochures work perfectly in those cases — and a well-designed brochure has a much higher chance of being read.

3-panel brochure design for Longmeadow Family Dental Care.
Self-mailing brochure with a die-cut cover, designed for PMMI.
Brochure design for historical site, Tolson’s Chapel.

Booklet Designs

Got a lot more to say than can fit in a brochure? I love working on booklet, magazine, and report designs!

Parks & Recreation guide designed for the Hagerstown-Washington County Parks and Recreation division.
This publication about C&A Scientific’s Microscope Slides was designed to be printed on one side of a sheet of paper and either stapled or bound in such a way that the pages would be viewed one at a time.
The theme for the 2015 PACK EXPO and Pharma EXPO exhibitor guidelines and information was Las Vegas. The color scheme, then, reflected this using black, gold, and red. All graphic elements were custom-illustrated and created for this publication.

Content and Branding Strategy

Maybe you need help with just planning out a big project or branding overhaul for your company, website, or a service you offer. My experience with marketing, writing, and branding makes me a great fit to consult with you to create a workable, beautiful, useful plan for whatever you need.

A messy stack of papers with brainstorming, mood boards, and action plans for the Icon Graphics website redesign.
A web design for Longmeadow Family Dental Care, displayed on a desktop screen, a tablet, and a smart phone.
A bifold brochure designed for Antietam Cable (now Antietam Broadband). It’s advertising their phone services.

Messaging for a Cause

In addition to my graphic design work, I’m a calligrapher, hand-letterer, and illustrator. I’ve been commissioned to create several designs for various causes, as well as working on causes in my own free time because I believe so strongly in them.

A Little More About Me

Headshot of me, Dani Ward. I have very pale skin and curly fuchsia and purple hair cut in an asymmetrical pixie cut. I’m wearing large black hipster glasses, a crystal nose ring, berry-colored lipstick, and a necklace with pink and orange shells. One eyebrow is slightly raised as I smile, looking into the camera.

I’m an RVA-based graphic designer, educator, artist, and human focused on making my little sphere of influence a better-educated and more compassionate place.

10 Years of Design

My time as a designer has been spent working in 3 very common scenarios. In the past decade, I’ve been a freelance designer, worked in-house as part of a marketing team, and spent time as a member of a design studio. Each workplace has its own set of expectations, responsibilities, and tasks.

Working in such varied environments has helped me narrow the focus of my work in recent years. Most of my projects nowadays involve branding. I really enjoy creating a visually unique, engaging, and consistent framework for a client’s design and marketing needs — whether that includes a logo redesign or not.

3 Years of Teaching

I taught graphic design classes at a local community college for just shy of 3 years. Because of the variety of my design experience, I was able to better prepare students for work outside the classroom. I collaborated with small businesses in the community to give my classes experience working with client-provided design briefs. Similarly, local printers agreed to work with my students as they learned to prep files for production.

A Lifetime of Learning

My passion is encouraging people to be good to themselves and to one another. Being a good human boils down to empathy and respect. That may sound simple, but it takes learning by listening and paying attention to those around us. Those traits are needed to be a good designer, too. I want to make a positive impact on the world with my life and my design.